Boxing is clearly the toughest sport there is. Even ESPN ran an algorithm to prove that: sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills. It requires incredible stamina, endurance, strength, agility, and power. No wonder why boxers look so incredible. The 12 round bouts of pummelling an opponent into oblivion while simultaenously getting hit in the face a few hundred times are testament to how physically demanding this sport is. Therefore, boxers need to train like absolute animals so they don’t get murdered. Below is a list of the most jacked, ripped, lean, muscular men in boxing today and in year’s past (in no particular order). Being that this list is very subjective, we created a list based on a combination of criteria including muscular size, vascularity, leanness, proportionality, aesthetics, and rarity of body types. We supplied you with pictures so you can see more clearly why we chose one athlete over the other and who has a better physique in our eyes.

Tim Bradley

Tim Bradley might be the hardest working man in boxing. His workouts are very unconventional and are novel to the boxing world. Before beginning serious training, Bradley fasts for 5 days to cleanse his body, rid of all the toxins and get ready for a fresh start. During training, he follows a strict vegetarian diet with vegetables, rice and beans.

His famous workout involves the famous pushup lifting himself up with his chin/mouth to bolster his jaw for less chance of a knockout.

Frank Bruno

Below is Frank Bruno’s intense training regimen to provide him with this 5-star body:

6:30 am run

5 to 7 miles

15 to 20 min stretching

3-3 shadow boxing

4-3 heavy bag

3-3 pads

3-3 speed bag

Stationary bike 18 min

3-20 leg raises with medicine

3-20 medicine ball drops

Manny Pacquiao

Manny Pacquiao is considered to be one of the best boxers in today’s sport. He is the first boxer to win seven championships in seven different weight classes and is well accomplished inside the ring. Him and Floyd Mayweather are in a struggle for pound for pound champ; and until they meet we’ll never know who’s better. Manny has the most ripped body for a lightweight on the grand stage. His hard work focusing on speed work, agility, endurance, power, and intelligence is what provides him with that jacked body you see.

Pacquiao’s workout is as follows:

6 AM- 45 minute run, then sprints Eats and sleeps and then does 3 hours of training in the gym

He works for three hours on everything from speed work to heavy bag work and is intense throughout all 180 minutes to make the session grueling enough to be reminiscent of a 12 round match.

Manny starts by performing shadow boxing. Then he goes to a classic mitt routine. Then he develops his footwork. Subsequently, he works on the double bag, speed bag, and heavy bag. After he’s done with that, he goes to jump roping and conditioning. At this point he’s absolutely exhausted but he finishes off with ab training. He does 1400 crunches a day and gets hit by a bamboo stick so he can better absorb blows in the fight.

Manny’s nutritional regimen involves rice, beef broth, chicken soup, and protein shakes.

Floyd Mayweather

“Pretty Boy” Floyd is a phenom in the ring and that can especially attributed to his defense and speed. Floyd is no stranger to hard work and trains in the early morning hours (soemtimes 3 am) to make sure he’s in the best shape out of any boxer in the history of the sport. One day, Floyd went into practice and put on a clinic for the press during Media Day. His workout included a grueling 62 minute workout with no breaks in between. His hands eere moving for all 62 minutes and didn’t get water once at any moment. It consisted of the following fast-paced no-nonsene nonstop-conditioning workout:

Hard Mitt work punching from all angles

Heavy Bag Work

Speed Bag

Jump Rope at a rapid, rhythmic speed

Sit-Ups/Stand-Ups

Mayweather is so fast that he hit the speed bag 762 times in 7 minutes. When he’s not putting on a show for the press, he trains even harder doing a circuit for hours on end. It consists of running, jumping rope, crunches, speed bag work, heavy bag work, sparring, and even basketball. Mayweather also performs workouts blindfolded. He also throws upwards of 2,000 punches in 20 minutes. He has the perfect combination of speed, power, and endurance to one day be considered the greatest boxers ever.

Joshua Clottley

Clottley has always been a terrific bioxer and is often the #1 contender to many legends. One of Clottley’s workouts consists of a 15 round sparring workout followed by jumping rope for 10 minutes, a series of runs, hops, and sideskips around the ring. Clottley loves to sprint. He runs from his place in the Bronx on 167th Street to Tracey Towers 244th street; whereupon he sprints one block, walks one block to his destination providing a great interval training workout. He doesn’t lift weights, proving you can get a jacked body just with your bodyweight, cardio, and proper nutrition.

Jermain Taylor

Jermain Taylor is an intelligent boxer who was the undisputed middleweight champion after he beat Bernard Hopkins and wonhis first 25 professional bouts. Jermain Taylor does a combination of speed and power workouts. He is an incredibly hard worker and views every minute as an opportunity to improve. Taylor is notorious for being very hard on his sparring partners and treats each session as a prizefight. After being criticized for his lack of energy int he later rounds when defending his title, he started to focus on training his legs with plyometric exercises to carry his energy through the later rounds.

Roy Jones Jr.

Roy Jones Jr. is definitely considered one of the top 10 boxers of all time given his impeccable boxing career. After he was robbed of an Olympic medal due to partial judges who awarded the decision to their hometown hero (in what was regarded as the worst boxing scandal in the sport’s history-Jones landed 86 punches to Park’s 32)), Roy Jones entered the professional boxing scene with a vengeance and consequently, went on a tear. “Captain Hook” was the fighter of the decade in the 90’s and his accomplishments often go overlooked. Jones went 49-1in his run, losing his only fight to Montel Griffin in a Disqualification for a late hit. Jones reclaimed his title knocking out Griffin int he 1st round in his rematch and even beat Bernard Hopkins with a broken hand to win his first middleweight title belt. He fell into a landslide towards the end of his career as most professional boxers do (even the greatest ones) because he encompasses a passion for boxing that won’t let him quit the sport. Roy Jones has probably the best body in boxing and it’s his training that allows for that. His training looks like the following:

5 mile runs in the morning followed by squats

Basketball after lunch

Boxing Routine:

1) Several rounds of warming up and press ups

2) 12 rounds of boxing (pads/sparring/bags)- 4 minute rounds all the time

3) 16 minutes each on speedball and floor-to-ceiling ball

4) 1200 reps on the abs (he had gradually increased total amount of reps on the abs over time)

5) 16 minutes of skipping

6) Stretching Training took up 6-7 hours of his day.

Roy’s nutritional plan: Breakfast- fruit Lunch- Chicken Salad, Vegetables, Pasta Dinner- Protein source like chicken He never had any alcohol or drugs enter his body ever. Supposedly during training with his father, he never womanized or masturbated to keep his aggression levels high.
Jones loves to train and he even played a full professional basketball game immediately before his championship fight that he won against Canada’s Eric Lucas in 1996.

David Haye

The “Hayemaker” does a fabulous circuit routine with no breaks in between sets as shown by Men’s Fitness:

1) Weighted Chin-Up- 3 sets x 8 reps

2) Cable Rotation to Punch- 3 sets x 10 Reps

3) Russian Twist- 3 sets x 8 reps

4) Flying Stance- 2 sets x 20 reps

5) Clap Press-Up- 3 sets x 20 Second Reps

6) Ball Curl to Throw- 2 Sets x 10 Reps

7) Pad Drill- 3 Sets x 1 Minute Reps

Evander Holyfield

Evander Holyfield will always be considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxers ever given his primetime fights and the tough competition he faced. He was a physical specimen- strong, quick, explosive, and powerful. Below was his conditioning plan as illustrated by his trainer in this article: http://www.sportsci.org/news/news9709/hatfield.html

“The twelve week macro cycle was broken down into four mesocycles of three weeks duration. Each 3-week period had specific goals, and each subsequent 3-week period built upon what was established in the preceding periods. The conditioning goals for each mesocycle were as follows:

Weeks One, Two and Three

1. Maximize muscle mass — Evander needed to increase his body mass from under 210 to 220 pounds.

2. Minimize fat accumulation during hypertrophy phase (dietary strategies including “zig-zag” diet were employed).

3. Improve general strength and fitness foundation, including moderate aerobic threshold intensity training.

4. Begin training to increase anaerobic threshold.

5. Introduce light plyometrics.

Weeks Four, Five and Six

1. Maximize limit strength of muscles/movement used in boxing (emphasis on legs).

2. Increase anaerobic strength endurance (maximum force output time after time).

3. Begin training specific skills (weaknesses) in earnest.

4. Concentrate on between-workout recovery.

5. Introduce explosive strength and starting strength with moderate plyometrics.

Weeks Seven, Eight and Nine

1. Maximize explosive strength.

2. Specific event skills must predominate all skills training sessions.

3. Continue anaerobic threshold training.

4. Maximize between-workout recovery.

5. Incorporate weighted plyometrics and hill/stairs running.

Weeks Ten, Eleven and Twelve

1. Maximize ballistic strength (starting strength) using “shock” plyometrics (built on a 9-week base of plyometrics progression).

2. Heavy emphasis on anaerobic threshold.

3. Maximize between-workout recovery ability.

4. Heavy emphasis on skills.

5. Emphasize speed, agility, ballistic movements.

6. “Overspend” drills in final preparatory period.

7. Begin “complex training” (description below) as a replacement for normal weight training.”

Mike Tyson

“Iron Mike” Tyson was the undisputed heavyweight champion and youngest man to ever win the WBC, WBA, and IBF world heavyweight titles at just a 20 year old kid. His raw power and ability to knockout even the toughest of guys made his opponents look like they all had glass jaws. “Kid Dynamite” won his first 19 professional bouts by knockout, 12 in the first round, and was often considered to be one of the greatest ever until he went on a landslide losing to Buster Douglas, Evander Hoylfield, and Lennox Lewis. In Mike Tyson’s prime, he trained like an animal and I would suggest that he gave up that heavy-duty training to cause his defeats. Below was a sample of his workout in his prime which was performed 7 days a week:

Daily Regimen (7 days a week):

5am: get up and go for a 3 mile jog

6am: come back home shower and go back to bed (great workout for those huge legs of his)

10am wake up: eat oatmeal 12pm: do ring work (10 rounds of sparring)

2pm: have another meal (steak and pasta with fruit juice drink)

3pm: more ring work and 60 mins on the exercise bike (again working those huge legs for endurance)

5pm: 2000 sit-ups; 500-800 dips; 500 press-ups; 500 shrugs with a 30kg barbell and 10 mins of neck exercises

7pm: steak and pasta meal again with fruit juice (orange i think it was)

8pm: another 30 minutes on the exercise bike then watch TV and then go to bed.

(Before jogging in the morning, he did a lot of stretching followed by 10 jumps onto boxes and 10 bursts of sprints, then he went jogging. At 12pm he sparred. At 3pm he focused on mitt work and heavy bag work inside the ring. He warmed up for his ring work with light exercises such as skipping, shadow boxing or speed ball. At 5pm Tyson did 10 quick circuits, each circuit consisting of: 200 sit-ups, then 25-40 dips, then 50 press-ups, then 25-40 dips, then 50 shrugs, followed by 10 mins of neck work on the floor. Tyson said that the shrugs is what built his shoulders up to help him punch given his short arms.)

“The Baddest Man on the Planet” didn’t follow a bodybuilder routine, instead he did floor exercises and natural exercises. Mike explained that his His punching-power came from heavy bag work.

Vladimir Klitschko

According to Men’s Fitness: To prepare for Sultan Ibragimov, Klitschko followed a month-long routine that looked like the following:
“Four days a week, he watched his opponent’s past fights on-screen, while running, punching, and jabbing with four-pound weights attached to his arms and legs. In the evenings, he sparred 10 rounds for two hours. He filled two more days by swimming nonstop laps in the pool for 40 minutes and adding beach runs to his regi- men. Klitschko, who’s knocked out 44 of his 50 foes, beat Ibragimov to unify the heavyweight title. ‘By the middle of the fight, [Ibragimov] knew he was going to lose.'”

Jeff Lacy

“We are sparring every other day now. On days I don’t spar, I am jumping rope and working with the medicine ball. Every night I run 3-5 miles and once a week I take a long run and that is usually about 6-7 miles. I am so strong now and my endurance is approaching career-highs. I feel like Superman.” – Jeff Lacy

Marvin Hagler

According to the “Ring Magazine” article, Hagler does the following:

“Six to eight miles on the beach at Cape Cod where he trained, then he went into “solitary till six in the evening. At six, he went to the gym they’d set up alongside the pool at a hotel nearby. Jumping rope, heavybag, speedbag, several rounds each, but one strict rule was adhered to: three minutes work, one minute rest, for all of it. Situps, too; three minutes work, one minute rest. Then the sparring. Marvin had to have several sparring partners in camp with him because he used them up with such regularity. He even beat his own half-brother Robbie Sims with equal malice. No familial considerations given. “Marvin don’t ease up on you,” said longtime sparring partner and world champion to be Buster Drayton, “he comes to work.” He had to put an old baseball cap on his head backwards before putting on the headgear, to prevent chafing his eyebrows, then he was ready. The procession of three to four sparring partners went two rounds each before slumping off. Drayton also said that his sparring mates would leave the ring with the insides of their mouths so chewed up from Hagler’s blows they couldn’t eat dinner that night. After that, he was done. The workouts were open to the public, so he’d remove his gear, toss a nod to the audience, and return to the self-imposed solitary confinement. Those working with him in camp remark that he wouldn’t mix with others as some might. He stayed in his room, and could be seen frequently sitting alone on his balcony staring out at the Cape for long periods at a time. Not a hell of a lot else to do, I guess.”